Mitch Altman has been putting together electronic hardware in his own unique style for nearly thirty years. He was an early virtual reality pioneer at VPL with Jaron Lanier and one of the very first Silicon Valley start-up founders, establishing RAID controller company 3Ware in 1997. Altman’s latest role has been as a founder of the San Francisco hackerspace Noisebridge, where he helps people learn how to solder and program microcontrollers. Altman was a leading light of Maker Faire and Make magazine, designing their most popular kit, Trip Glasses, parting ways with them earlier this year in protest at their acceptance of a DARPA grant. (He also left VPL when the company started winning military contracts). His coolest invention is the TV-B-Gone, a one button remote control for shutting off TVs in public places.